Today we are going to talk about what we have called a Happiness Map. This map is not all Buddhism has to say about how to develop happiness. In fact if you look at Buddhist texts you won't find such a thing as a Happiness Map.

It is an extract we have made of the main components of the Buddhist Teachings that together produce a stable platform upon which our wellbeing and happiness can increase throughout our life. We are not really talking about the happiness that comes when we experience something we like or acquire something we wanted.

That form of happiness from a Buddhist point of view is not very reliable or stable because as soon as we loose the thing we were happy about or as soon as the experience we like stops happening our happiness can shrivel up.

The pleasure of hearing a great new song fades off, our new clothes become old fashioned, your new car becomes outdated, our cutting-edge computer is soon too slow, and maybe even a past friend becomes a new enemy. The person you loved now seems to irritate you. These scenarios we all know too well. Getting what you want doesn't make you really happy. Maybe it looks like it will make you happy at the time, but from a Buddhist viewpoint it is an illusion.

Also this type of happiness that depends on something outside ourselves often has too much dependency and attachment in it.

This dependency tends to work against our happiness. For example, we may experience some happiness with our partner yet at the same time, because of our attachment to them we may experience such things as jealousy, possessiveness, insecurity and resentment because they won't be what we want them to be.

If our old view of how happiness is produced did work we would be really happy all the time. But we're not really happy all the time. Our happiness will never have a secure base if it is tied to external events and conditions which are outside our control.

With this understanding, we strive for a more reliable basis for our well-being and happiness.

Our Happiness map is drawn with a base or platform of the bottom which depicts the different parts of Buddhist practice we do everyday.

The platform itself is named a "Virtue Platform" and its components are: generosity, the morality of five precepts, mindfulness, reduce unwholesome mental states, increase wholesome mental states, letting go and finally Buddha Refuge.

These different practices we will talk about during this program. Together they form a stable platform upon which our happiness in life can improve.

As our practice of these improves our merit is increased and our mind becomes more clear and peaceful.

The second part of our Happiness Map sits above the virtue platform. This is called meditation. With a base of virtuous minds our meditation will be clear and peaceful with stable concentration. There are factors which can lead one eventually to the goal of Buddhist practise which is known as Nibbana or Ultimate Happiness.

The top section of our Happiness Map shows that Nibbana comes from the practice of Right meditation which itself comes from our practice of the factors that form our virtue platform.

What is the underlying principle upon which our Happiness Map is based?

It is based on the principle that we can take charge of our own mind.

Buddhists know this. Mental states such as worry, regret, stinginess, ill will, doubt, laziness, dullness of mind, greed, restlessness, attachment, conceit, aversion, boredom, jealousy and envy are all producers of unhappiness now and in the future. If we harbour these mental states they are drivers of unhappiness now, and because of the law of kamma they make causes for similar mental states to come back to us again in the future.

Together they make an unhappiness producing platform, or a stress producing platform, or a confusion producing platform.

As the Buddha says in the Dhammapada, Chapter 1,

We gradually train ourselves through Buddhist Practice to stop the unwholesome minds arising now and in the future by applying restraint to our behaviour in the present and applying the correct antidote behaviour in the present.

Buddhist ‘loving-kindness meditation’ is one example of how we can prompt and cultivate in our mind wholesome consciousness and behaviour. The wholesome consciousness of metta or loving-kindness is our minds natural antidote to resentment, aversion, jealously and hate. As our love strengthens the negative states become progressively weaker and easier to give up.

This is the function of the "Letting Go" part of our Happiness Map. We give up and let go our unwholesome habits and behaviours. Gradually through practice we can recognise our negative states at both the gross and subtle levels, then we can let go of them instead of maintaining and strengthening them through our negative behaviour.

We don't have to stay annoyed with someone who did something we didn't like. When you see yourself starting to get stuck in any unwholesome thinking tell yourself to let it go. You actually say that as an instruction for your mind to follow. Tell the unwholesome state to stop. It's not actually you, it's not a self or something precious or important; it's just one possible state that can arise for a period of time. Because it produces unhappiness and clouds your view give it up.

You can get quite good at dropping the unwholesome minds if you act quickly - cut them as soon as you first see them, before they become established in your mind. Learn to apply the correct natural antidote.

Better still, don't let them enter your mind in the first place. One of Buddha's instructions regarding this practice is to protect your mind like a well-thatched roof keeps the rain out of a house. In the Buddha's time roofs of houses were often made from grasses or straw that was placed in a pattern called thatching. The Buddha advises us to protect our minds like a well-thatched roof keeps the rain out of a house. You need to develop good mindfulness to do this. Mindfulness is another of the factors in our Happiness Map.

You could also describe mindfulness as being like a guard that stands alert and sees what type of mental state arrives at the mind's door. Mindfulness stops the unwholesome entering the mind in the first place. You don't have to remove unwholesome mental states because they never get in.

The second part of the Dhammapada quote reads:

We train our minds to produce the wholesome mental states such as confidence, mindfulness, friendliness, generosity, alertness, forgiveness, patience, fear of unwholesomeness, joy, equanimity, lightness of mind, adaptability of mind and loving kindness. According to the Buddhist texts there are 25 possible wholesome states of consciousness we can develop.

The reason that is a secure base for our happiness is because it is robust, it is resilient, it can bend with the wind rather than stress and break, it is intelligent, it is built on inner strengths which can deal with the difficulties of life much better.

Over time through practice as your virtue platform becomes stronger your ability to handle misfortune without becoming upset increases.

We decide to be a kinder person, we decide to relate with others we know and meet with generosity and lightness of heart. We choose to become friendlier, offer others more warmth, more love and we consider others needs and offer our help when it would be beneficial. We start to view other people we know as our guests.

Training your mind to be wholesome is the way a true platform for your happiness in this life is built, and, as they say in the commercials 'But wait, there's more!' According to Buddhism, the wholesome minds and actions you build in this life become powerful causes for you to have good rebirths in your future lives.

So the bottom line of this 10 part course on Buddhism is - developing wholesome minds and actions is a true foundation of your long term well being and happiness.

You're going to get old age, sickness and death this life - that's your body's inescapable future destination. However, it is possible to maintain your wholesome minds as you get older, it is possible to maintain bright, intelligent, happy minds even as your body wears out. Many people's minds deteriorate along with their body's deterioration because their minds are not trained to stay wholesome.

So what are some of the other components of our Happiness Map.

In our culture morality tends to be overlooked and its importance underestimated because it is generally understood in terms of our historical Christian perspective or from the perspective of non-religious logic systems. Our modern perspectives do not deeply appreciate the underpinning role of morality to an individual’s mental health and long term well-being.

From Buddhist understanding and experience when morality has been strongly practiced and developed it becomes a very clear and powerful level of mind.

In Buddhism there are no commandments or similar authoritarian type rules of behaviour. This is because at the very heart of Buddhism is the principle that the individual is solely responsible for his or her own welfare, happiness or unhappiness, which arise just as a result of the persons own actions.

Buddhist morality does not accept that our life and wellbeing are the outcome of the will of a supreme or higher being. The basis of a person choosing to maintain moral behaviour, therefore, is not because it's a commandment of the religion but because there is a clear understanding and comprehension that morality is our first and best defence against creating more suffering for ourselves in the future.

The Buddha advises us to train our minds and actions so that we keep five precepts.

The five precepts are:

To not kill living beings
To not steal
To not commit sexual misconduct
To not lie
To not take intoxicants which cloud the mind

The reason why the five particular negative actions that the precepts stop us from committing are highlighted, is that the Buddha recognised that some negative actions are more powerful than others. They are more powerful in the sense that they produce more powerful kammic results.

He identified that the five negative actions of killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct and taking intoxicants produce the most potent negative kamma or most concentrated negative kamma for ourselves to inherit in our future.

Our Teacher John Hughes told us many times that in ultimate reality most of the suffering we had experienced in our life came from us breaking the five precepts in past times.

If you take time to consider this you'll agree many of the problems that afflict people and society at large arise from individuals not keeping these five precepts.

Buddhists see keeping precepts as Occupation Health and Safety for our life. These precepts are just like that - they are the minimum standards of safe action of our body, speech and mind so we do not come to danger in this life or future lives. Precepts are our most powerful form of personal protection as from the ultimate reality viewpoint they keep you safe and healthy.

Further, the practice of morality reduces and weakens defilements of the mind and promotes and strengthens wholesome states of consciousness.

This is a platform or foundation of peaceful, content, happy minds and wholesome mental states. The practice of morality produces powerful good kamma as it is the opposite of the five actions that produce the most powerful negative kamma.

This type of good kamma is experienced by the doer as pure, peaceful virtuous minds and peaceful living conditions which are both needed by us to develop on the Buddhist path. There is no such thing as a virtuous person who kills other beings, or steals from others.

It is also a foundation of coming to see things as they really are as the peace and purity that comes as a result of keeping precepts enables our mind to develop right concentration in meditation, which is a prerequisite to developing wisdom.

We do not become paranoid about the precepts. We have all broken precepts time and time again in our past, but we decide from now on we have the intention to keep them. We learn how to keep them well and we train ourselves to guard them in whatever we are doing.

If we do break a precept we don't react to that with guilt or regret. We just note "I have more training to do!" We re-affirm that we intend to keep that precept from now on.

We can only keep precepts really well by being mindful of what we are doing in the present moment. We come into the present- we stop thinking that we will keep the precepts at some future time. We look at our situation now. We focus on what we are doing with our body, we consider for a moment before we speak or act and we watch the thoughts that are arising.

In this way we can guard ourselves and take control of our actions, our speech and thoughts to not kill, to not lie, etc. It is in the present time that the kamma is being made. If you do not recognise what is happening in the present, you cannot change anything.

Finally today we will consider what it means to have Buddha Refuge, which is the remaining part of the Happiness Map.

The refuge we have in Buddhism is actually in three parts. We take refuge in the Buddha, we take refuge in the Dhamma, which is Teachings given by the Buddha, and we take refuge in the Sangha, the community of Buddhist Monks and Nuns or even the community of enlightened Buddhist masters past and present.

We don't worship Buddha or any other being. We have respect for Buddha. We respect the qualities of the Buddha and what he did in his life. We identify with the will of the Prince Siddhartha who dedicated his life to finding out about the truth of life itself. We identify with the journey he undertook which resulted in him becoming awakened or enlightened.

We are all on a journey in our lives, perhaps many journeys within one life. For Buddhists having refuge in the Buddha is a statement that we want our personal journey in life to be that of becoming awakened. That we recognise our life is an opportunity to overcome suffering for ourselves completely and perhaps, help others to do the same.

So refuge in the Buddha is like the compass bearing we have set for ourselves in life. We choose to journey towards enlightenment because for us we are using our life for something of great value and meaning.

If our Happiness Map does not have Buddha Refuge in it the destination of our journey will end up being completely different. As we practice the other components of our Happiness Map we create so many good kammic causes for our future. However just like we have a choice in life to spend our money to buy anything we want, so we can spend these good kammic causes or merit to get whatever we want.

So it is our refuge in Buddha that sets the direction our good causes will take us. Taking refuge in Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha makes many kammic connections to Buddha Dhamma so that we can meet it again and again in the future until we complete the Buddhist Path.

Without that refuge our merit could take us to a destination such as a birth in a high heaven with no knowledge of the Buddha Path, or perhaps many human lives of great wealth and comfort. We can all appreciate that such lives could be wonderful to experience but there comes a day when that good kamma has been used up, and as our merit bank account eventually runs dry we will have nothing whatever to show for our past efforts. Instead we use much of our merit to help us progress on the Buddhist Path.

Happiness is defined in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as "The state of pleasurable content of mind which results from success or the attainment of what is considered good". I think this definition refers to the types of happiness we experience when things are going well for us. We may be happily married, or have success in achieving our ambitions or have material comforts or whatever it is when we achieve what we want.

In Buddhism we talk about deep levels of happiness which we know can be experienced. These types of happiness can more easily withstand the ups and downs of life which have in the past usually caused us to experience suffering.

Buddhism says even this happiness can be surpassed by the nourishment of deep contentment and serenity and finally the sublime state of nirvana where the mind becomes unshakeable and never strays from perfect peace.

For the next few weeks on the Buddhist Hour we will talk about how to practice each part of the Happiness Map in your life.

We wish you success with your Buddhist practice.

May you be well and happy.

May all beings be well and happy.

References

1. The Dhammapada. Translator Venerable Buddharakita. Published by Sukhi Hotu, 1A-2, First Floor, Mayang Plaza, Jalan ss26/9, Taman Mayang Jaya, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan Malaysia.